About Me

I have been a gen­er­al­ist pho­tog­ra­ph­er for many years. How­ev­er, some years back I became enchant­ed with a Great Egret, one thing led to anoth­er and now I most­ly pho­to­graph birds. Espe­cial­ly birds in flight. That led me to won­der­ing about how birds move through the air. (I still hold a pilot’s license and have long been inter­est­ed in physics of flight.) So my won­der­ing turned into an explo­ration.

The result? An emerg­ing book, Avia­nau­tics, the Art and Sci­ence of Flap­ping Wings, a pho­to­graph­ic explo­ration of how birds fly.

Sausalito Harbor under the red haze of a far-off forest fire

Where am I? Most days I am in Sausal­i­to, Cal­i­for­nia where I live on a float­ing home. The view above is from the north end of Sausal­i­to Har­bor look­ing across the bay at San Fran­cis­co on a day when the sun was hid­den by the smoke from a for­est fire.

No, not a motor dri­ven ‘house­boat.’ My home has a 20 by 40 foot con­crete hull and is actu­al­ly a reg­u­lar house float­ing on the water. It doesn’t trav­el any­where, just ris­es and falls with the tide.

I met you this morn­ing while pho­tograph­ing egrets at the San­ta Rosa 9th Street rook­ery. We talked about oth­er bird pho­to ops in this area, and briefly dis­cussed your tech­nique for pho­tograph­ing birds in flight. You gave me your card sug­gest­ing that I send you an email.

Sor­ry if this long but it is some­thing I wrote about an encounter with a great blue heron that lead me to a fas­ci­na­tion with pho­tograph­ing birds in flight, not unlike your sto­ry…

This morn­ing

It was a kind of sad­ness that made me stop
at the place I usu­al­ly just dri­ve by
where grace found me in the form
of a great blue heron who danced with me
fol­low­ing my lead
mov­ing away as I moved clos­er
stop­ping to look at me as I looked at him
then spread­ing his wings and grace­ful­ly
fly­ing away with just a bit of my melan­choly

Then it was a vir­tu­oso per­for­mance
that sound­ed like five birds
but was only one
at the top of a wise old oak
lit up against the dark sky that
I had been drag­ging around all morn­ing
it could only be a mock­ing­bird
but I could not tell if was singing for me
or at me — the intrud­er -
or just singing

Then out of the cor­ner of my eye a hawk
plum­met­ing as if in hot pur­suit
only to come to a screech­ing halt
with a flour­ish of gold­en wings
on the top of a tall tree

Then a flash of gold and a song of delight
the roller coast­er flight of my first goldfinch
step­ping out in high style
with his more sober­ly dressed mate

As I sat down to write a quail stepped out
of the bush five feet from me
to tell me to wake up
to rec­og­nize his par­tic­u­lar call as he
and his fam­i­ly cir­cled around me
as three egrets flew by in their aer­i­al bal­let
and the goldfinch­es which I had thought long gone
returned for an encore

Ear­li­er I had longed for binoc­u­lars
for my cam­era with the long lens
to get clos­er to the great blue
to this rare vis­i­ta­tion
but I final­ly under­stood
that this was not about chance
or the right equip­ment
at just the right moment

It was all around me
at all times and telling me
(like the police­man near­by
who gave me the speed­ing tick­et
twice — in the same place!)
to slow down
to pay atten­tion

How often we for­get
that even those moments that feel
like cross­ing a bar­ren desert
will reveal them­selves to be teem­ing with life
if we just

I am a big fan (great blue heron big) of your work. I work right out­side of a win­dow that looks over a small lake and wild prairie and I am on the con­stant look­out for any wildlife activ­i­ties. Please add me to your week­ly emails and feel free to con­tact me to talk nature sto­ries any after­noon.

Hi Richard,
Would you be able to present a col­lec­tion of your still wildlife pho­tos to my pho­to club called Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­phers of Sil­i­con Val­ley? We hold meet­ings the third Mon­day of every month at Harry’s Hof­brau in San Jose. Here is our URL:http://www.wpsv.org

The pur­pose of our club is both enter­tain­ment and edu­ca­tion. There­fore, incor­po­rat­ing how you shot your pic­tures or gen­er­al tips are appre­ci­at­ed. Our club has a 1024x768 pro­jec­tor and screen avail­able. You can choose to present at our April through Novem­ber meet­ings.

Hel­lo,
i’m avid bird­er with about 50+ years in, since boy scouts, doing pho­tog­ra­phy last 30 years, so they both came togeth­er. Have been out to S.F. six or sev­en times, will be out two weeks begin­ning of May, could i make some requests as to where i would be best to vis­it, i’ve usu­al­ly been out in Oct. or Feb.,
Your work is just amaz­ing, i’m quite more than impressed keep up your won­der­ful images, and add me to your emails,

Would love to use your mag­nif­i­cent pho­to of the crow and the kite in our wildlife pro­files for kids. We would love to give full cred­it and your web­site link:) We need high res, 3“x5” and how you would like to be cred­it­ed.

I was referred to your great site by Jaya at Adven­ture Bud­dies. I am a bird­er in the Sier­ra foothills and recent­ly attempt­ing the tran­si­tion from film to dig­i­tal. I like your site and would like to be added to your newsletter/blog
Joe

I so enjoyed speak­ing with you today when you called about your air­lines reser­va­tion. Thank you for telling me about this site — I would so appre­ci­ate you includ­ing me in future emails and updates. Your pho­tog­ra­phy is superb and your obser­va­tions process is unique! Love it! What a great life! Thank you for bring­ing the beau­ty of cre­ation to all of us who are not able to trav­el to see it!